Reflections of a Hero
by vea29
Summary: What is going through Jack's mind immediately following the Children of Earth finale? Rated T due to one or two not so nice words


I've lived a long time...so many lives. I've traveled to the end of the Universe and back...seen beauty you couldn't imagine and horrors you wouldn't believe. I've loved like no man ever has and lost more than he ever should. I'm immortal, you see...timeless, if not ageless. A fixed point in time and space. A fact.

Didn't start out that way. Just sort of happened...thanks to a blonde bombshell named Rose and a never-leave-well-enough-alone Time Lord called the Doctor. They changed me...ended my con man, live-only-for-myself ways and made me a better man. I was better off a coward.

Now, here their hero is...alone and shivering in the cargo hold of a cold-fusion cruiser headed away from this solar system as fast as possible, tail tucked firmly between his legs. I can still hear her voice...soft and broken echoing over the hillside.

**_"You can't just run away...You can _not_ run away."_**

Told her to just watch me. Truth is, she's right. I can't run away from it...but I can sure as hell try.

Problem with memory, though, is it tends to follow you. Everywhere...every time. There's no escaping it, really. I don't even have the luxury of Retcon, and the Time Agency is gone so I can't very well count on them to wipe out another two years for me. No...there's nothing that will block it all out. Nothing to help me out run the faces that haunt me when I so much as blink...the voices whispering from the darkness...I can run, but they've already caught up.

_**"Dad! Dad, no! Tell them no!"**_

She begged me, pleaded with me not to let it happen. My little girl begging me not to take her little boy. There was another way; there _had_ to be. I just couldn't see it. One child for millions, the lives of the many...and, hey, it was just one more death, one more lost soul. What's one more, right? She stared at me uncomprehendingly as she cradled his body.

_**"Why?"**_

Because I couldn't find the other way, Alice. Because your old man messed up. I let you down..._again_. Stephen, too. He trusted his 'Uncle Jack' and because I wasn't fast enough or clever enough, he's dead. My daughter is burying her son, and it's my fault.

I can feel the ship accelerating. They must have finished their scans of the ion reefs. Now we can get the hell out of here and away from the blue-green rock. That's all it is now...a rock. Just a place where the dead linger.

I told myself I was ready for this...to lose them. It _was_ inevitable, after all. And, I've lost others...family, friends, lovers. I've watched them all come and go...for centuries. I've grieved and I've mourned...cried over graves and lost hours of sleep to countless regrets. And, admittedly, I've done my share of running way. And, yes, I know it won't help. But, I just couldn't stay there anymore. I couldn't look at her...any of them...or anything. Every child would be Stephen, every lab coat Owen. Every clack on a keyboard would the Tosh and every brunette ponytail Suzie. And every suit and tie and cup of coffee and witty remark would be Ianto.

_**"It's too late. I've breathed the air."**_

His crystal blue eyes widened with fear as the truth I was fighting so hard sank in. Denial stormed through me. This was _not_ happening.

_**"There's got to be something. There's got to be an antidote."**_

Every poison has an antidote. I knew there _had_ to be one for this one, too.

_**"You said you would fight."**_

Yeah, me..._My_ life on the line. Guns blazing, things exploding. A million ways to die...and, a million chances to save him...but not like this, crippled and helpless to stop it.

_**"Then I take it back, alright? I take it all back, but not him!"**_

They'd won. I would've given them the kids...anything they asked. They could've taken the whole damn planet, just not him. Not Ianto. Brave, loyal, beautiful Ianto who followed me wordlessly into battle and carried my broken body back home. Ianto, who knew when to listen to my nostalgic ramblings and when to stop me from just plain feeling sorry for myself...who believed I could do anything and made me believe it, too.

_**"No! No, no, no, no, no. Ianto, no..."**_

Even now I can feel his weight in my arms as he crumpled to the ground, the alien virus taking its deadly toll. His eyes already beginning that all too familiar fade. His pale skin growing even paler. This was _not_ happening.

I shake my head, fiercely trying to dislodge that singular, unshakeable image. My hands clamp tightly over my ears, uselessly trying to block out the oncoming storm.

_**"I love you."**_

That bastard...like I hadn't already known. Like hearing it made it any more real. He had to say it...I know he did. But he had to know what it was going to do to me. It didn't make his feelings or _us_ any more real...just drove home that I was _really_ losing him. He wasn't saying it because he wanted to or because he thought I should hear it. He only said it because he wasn't going to get another chance...couldn't leave it to go unsaid, and time was up.

_**"Don't..."**_

He didn't expect me to say it back, did he? I mean, honestly? He knows me better..._knew_ me better. I'm not much for deathbed confessions. Too little, too late, I say. Yeah, right. _That's_ it..._that's _why I couldn't produce three little words. Even Gwen wouldn't buy that. Honestly, for me, right then? Those words didn't mean what they were supposed to. Those words, right then, meant 'good-bye.' And, _that_ I just couldn't say...still cant.

_**"Ianto? Ianto. Ianto, stay with me. Ianto, stay with me, please."**_

He was fading fast...too fast. The virus was effective, got to give them that. Quick and to the point. Short and sweet...Alien fuckers.

_**"Hey, it was good, yeah?"**_

Good? He was bloody brilliant. I've lived so long, met so many people. But none, from here 'til the stars burn out, will ever compare to Ianto Jones. Don't get me wrong. He wasn't perfect, not by a long shot. Stubborn, even foolhardy at times, neat as a pin at work but a total slob at home. I know, right? Go figure. He also hated to cook, stole all the blankets; and, yeah, he even snored...like a freight train. No, he wasn't perfect at all. Just perfect for me. Kept me on my toes...kept me guessing. And, never failed to make me laugh whenever I really needed to. He never let me get away with being anything less than what he knew I could be. Being a world-saving hero is hard work. Having Ianto by my side made it bearable...made even the darkness that much brighter.

_**"Don't forget me."**_

He was always so afraid of that...that I would live so long that someday I'd forget he ever existed. As if...

_**"A thousand years time, you won't remember me."**_

Oh, yes, I will, Ianto Jones. I know now as I knew then that he wouldn't believe that. He never did. He was always so convinced of his own insignificance. Never even the slightest bit aware of just how deep his impact on the world...and on me really had been. I saved the world; Ianto Jones saved _me_.

_**"Ianto? Ianto? Don't go. Don't leave me, please. Please...don't."**_

All too soon he was gone. Azure eyes close one last time as his chest fell and didn't rise. Just like that, it was over...and I was alone...again. I felt the darkness closing in as the virus brought my own life to a close. I don't remember ever looking as forward to that pitch, black nothingness as I did then...don't think I'd ever wanted it more.

_**"You will die. And, tomorrow your people will deliver the children."**_

As if I cared right then. As if anything that was going to happen 'tomorrow' mattered as much as what had _just_ happened. As if any one of those that would be sacrificed mattered half as much as the one I had already lost. But, they couldn't resist that last, good chance to gloat. Aliens...they're all the same.

I am surprised when I brush my hands down my face, and they actually come away dry. The all-to-constant burning in my eyes had me thinking I'd been crying again. But, I guess it _is_ true, after all. It _is_ possible to cry yourself out...to get to that point where you just don't have anymore tears to shed. Guess I'm there.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the metallic surface of the cargo container in front of me. Not surprisingly my face is splotchy, and my eyes are red. But there are no tears. Not anymore. Six months of sniffling and wiping and blurred vision at the most inconvenient times. _Now_ it seems I'm done. Not with the pain or the grief or the sensation of being more lost than I've ever been in my long life. Just done with the tears part of it.

Then there's the other thing...I look older. And, not the desirable, it-makes-you-look-distinguished older. No, this is just older as in old...tired...beaten down. Appropriate, I suppose since that's what's happened, after all. I _have_ finally been beaten down. I _am_ tired. They say death is a part of life. As I stare into the shattered face of the remnant of the man I used to be, I find myself wondering just why it has to be such a big part of mine.

Well, look at that. Guess I'm not done, after all...


End file.
